Once Upon A Time
by T'Pring
Summary: ...a certain John Sheppard hit his head. Well, a tree hit his head. In a lightning storm a mile from the stargate. At night. Huddled in a cave with a very befuddled John, his team must figure out how to get him home.
1. Chapter 1

It was dark, stuffy and wet.

John was overwhelmed by the sour smell of rotted leaves and wet bodies and his stomach lurched alarmingly. He swallowed hard to hold down the unexpected nausea, then realized that he didn't know where he was or why he had a sudden fear of opening his eyes to find out.

"What happened?" He really hoped there was someone nearby who would answer.

"Holy Hawking! Again?"

"Hush, Rodney. John, you're injured. You've suffered a blow to the head and you need to lie still."

"We're all here, Sheppard. You don't need to open your eyes."

Despite a flutter of relief at the sound of all three voices, John took the warning as a challenge. He split his lids apart only to slam them closed again when the world outside refused to stand still. He swallowed again, then sucked in gulps of moist, moldy air. The chortle that came from somewhere over his left shoulder was pure Ronon.

"Where?...Where?" he managed after holding back more nausea with willpower and a fair amount of practice. He had a vague memory of sodden woods, flashing lights and…growling?

"For the fourth time, we're in a cave sheltering from stormageddon on P42-659. And since you've asked the same thing four times before, I'm going to go ahead and tell you that I don't know how long the storm will last, I don't know if we'll be able to send radio signals to and from the stargate in the charged atmosphere, and no, I don't know how to make a lightening shield out of treebark and a modified LSD, so don't ask."

John lay quiet for a while after Rodney's rant, trying to piece together his memory from the swirling maelstrom inside his head. It was something like trying to hear a single voice in a crowded room – he couldn't quite get enough to follow the conversation.

The few things he did understand bordered on the ridiculously obvious: Teyla had said "blow to the head", which explained the thick throbbing along the left side of his scalp and the splitting headache. He was on his right shoulder, curled into a ball against the pounding between his ears. A storm explained the flashes and the growling (thunder) and why he was soaked.

He wasn't cold, though. After a moment of concentration that took more effort than it should, John recognized the loud, close sounds of breathing and the persistent weight of figures leaning on or next to him. Wherever they were, they were wedged in tight. A sudden suspicion heated his face and he squirmed, almost lifted his head off the warm and firm surface his cheek rested upon.

"Be still, John. I need to put another compress on your wound."

Teyla's soft words were firm, but it wasn't her command that kept him from moving further. Even the slight motion he'd managed brought a flare of pain that sucked out any thought beyond blind agony. Weird sparks pulsed inside his tightly squeezed eyelids, and a gasp might have escaped because Teyla's hand on his shoulder tightened in sympathy.

Eventually the pain faded back into a pounding ache, but the flashing continued. There was a strange growling all around him. The air was muggy and stank like a locker room in Georgia.

"What happened?" He hoped someone would answer because he found himself reluctant to open his eyes and find out for himself.

"For the love of -! Should he keep doing that?" Rodney's voice was loud and panicky, and John tensed in an effort not to react – not to move. Something deep inside him kept screaming that he really didn't want to move.

"I am also concerned, Rodney. He seems very disoriented. If his memory does not improve, I fear it may mean he is suffering from more than just a concussion."

"Is he awake? Shouldn't we keep him awake if he's got a concussion? I thought you were supposed to keep people who hit their heads awake!"

"Zip it, McKay. The man's head hurts."

John was more grateful to Ronon at that moment than ever before.

"That is a false practice, Rodney. I am watching him closely and I believe he _is_ awake, just confused."

"M'wake," John managed, finally figuring out that they were talking about him. He was too dizzy to sleep – the disturbing feeling of vertigo, even when his eyes were closed, made his existence much too uncomfortable to fall asleep. He ached with the tension of trying not to move and trying not to wretch. A gust of damp air blew against his face, the cool freshness offering a brief moment of relief from nausea at least. "Answer question?" he prompted. John heard Rodney sigh, but didn't understand the man's exasperation.

"You hit your head, John." Unlike Rodney's grating worry, Teyla's voice was silken comfort. John relaxed just a bit, some of the tension bleeding out of his frame at her calming words. "You hit your head and we are very worried about you."

"Thanks. How?" he whispered, half because he truly couldn't remember getting hit and half to keep Teyla talking.

"Do you remember the storm?"

John tried to sort out the whirly-gig of memories spinning in his head, then gave up. "No."

"Then I will start from the beginning…"

* * *

><p>Teyla stared out at the forest for a moment before continuing. Night had fallen completely as they waited out the storm. But it was night interrupted by constant lightning. Trees and jumbled rocks were exposed in white light with each flash, looking almost skeletal, like bones against the black background of one of Jennifer's x-ray pictures. The air snapped and clapped with each strike.<p>

"We found the Ancient power station just where Atlantis' database described it, but it had long been destroyed by vegetation and the elements. A simple hunting village occupies the ruins now. We spoke with the leader of the village and then decided to return home before dark."

"Village?" John whispered.

Teyla adjusted the compress she held tightly against the bloody lump above John's left ear so she could see his face. His cheek rested heavily on her thigh and he was curled tightly into himself beside her. Though her legs were tingling with discomfort, she didn't dare move. Even the slightest motion seemed to cause him great pain.

Though more relaxed than before, John's eyes were pinched tightly closed and his lips were split in a snarl of endurance. Dried blood coated his ear, temple, and cheek, but any attempt to wipe away the mess caused him more discomfort. She insisted only on the chemical cold pack that had finally seemed to numb the wound enough that John no longer fought its pressure against his skull.

"They hunt the large birds that nest in this forest and build their houses out of bark panels that they peel away from the largest trees."

Even in their frightening situation, Teyla could admire the trees that grew amazingly tall and wide in this forest. John had compared them to trees called "Redwoods" from his planet. Teyla had never seen any others like them. Some were so tall they sometimes pierced the lowest layers of clouds that seemed constant on this world. Some were so wide, she, Ronon, Rodney, and John could hold hands side-by-side and still not reach around the bole. The bark the villagers stripped from these largest trees made panels as wide and tall as a stargate.

"They are amazing archers. I plan to bring my hunters here to trade for their skill in making bows." John's breath hitched, and Teyla watched him carefully until he relaxed again.

"G'on," he rasped at last. "Village. Bark?"

She shared a look with Ronon that was only partly amused. The cave they huddled within was very small, more a shallow depression in a wall of rock than a true cave. Ronon sprawled against the very back of the hole, turned sideways along its length and resting his back against the opposite side that wasn't more than six feet from the side Teyla leaned against. Rodney crouched, hands around his knees next to Ronon at John's feet. They were out of the wind, but the ground and rock was damp. There was a constant drip of water off the edge of the mouth opening.

"Yes, the villagers use bark to make their homes, here. We were caught in the storm on our return to the stargate. It came upon us very fast. You ordered us to spread out and stand on our toes so as to present a smaller target to the lightening."

"For all the good it did," Rodney interrupted. "I've never seen such a charged atmosphere in any storm anywhere. And I've never seen lighting hit the ground so often. Especially when there are so many trees! I can see why the Ancients put a power plant here if these storms are common. A single storm like this one could power San Francisco for a week if you found a way to harness the electricity."

"Hush, Rodney," Teyla hissed, for she felt John tense and the snarl go tighter.

"Power…power. Village. Bark." John mumbled around a gasp. Teyla held her breath, watching him closely. "What happened?" he said at last.

Teyla threw a glare so fierce at Rodney that he closed his mouth with an audible snap around the outburst that he'd begun at the question.

"We were caught in a storm, John. You ordered us to spread out. We are not certain, but we believe that lightning struck a tree near where you were standing. A branch must have hit you as it fell."

"Ouch," John mumbled.

"It wasn't a branch," Rodney contradicted, though quietly. Teyla looked at him in surprise. Rodney was squirming. He was looking at John and wouldn't meet their eyes.

"What happened?" Teyla prompted with a ghost of a smile on her lips that Rodney returned sheepishly…

* * *

><p>Rodney really hated being wet. Even more than the basic physical discomfort of having clothing stick to you, he knew exactly how much heat was being sapped from his body through evaporation (making assumptions about humidity and air pressure, of course) which could lead to potentially debilitating hypothermia, despite the "cozy" conditions of their cramped shelter. He could almost feel the pneumonia taking hold with every calorie he burned to stay warm in his sopping uniform.<p>

But what he hated even more than being wet, more than huddling well within personal space boundaries, and even more than having absolutely no technology available that would get him out of this jam was watching Sheppard go scrambled. He knew what it was like – to lose yourself from the inside out, to know that you knew things but not be able to find them…

Teyla and Ronon were still looking at him, so he sighed, waved a frustrated hand at Sheppard's still, prone body.

"We were close when the lightning struck the tree. The whole tree split in two. It wasn't the biggest tree around here, but it was big enough and it was about to fall on _me_. I froze. I just stood there and watched it shatter, then fall open like it had been cut with a knife. John comes out of nowhere, screaming about tree bark and shoves me out of the way."

"Tree bark!" John gasped from Teyla's lap and Rodney felt himself go even stiffer with fury. When the tree fell, there had been nothing but noise and light and rain. John had knocked him flat on his back, hard. Rodney had watched the trunk twist as it fell and swipe John off his feet as if he were a rag doll made of cloth and fluff. John was still unconscious when Teyla and Ronon had found him pressing a sopping field compress into the bloody gash on John's head.

"Teyla, we need to get him to Atlantis. If he's hemorrhaging inside that thick skull of his, then we may not have much time. _He_…may not have much time."

Teyla looked stricken and Ronon shifted angrily, jostling him.

"I'll go," Ronon grunted. "I'll bring back help."

"Is the storm letting up?" Teyla asked.

They all turned to look into the forest that was doing its best impression of a Halloween spook house – strobe lights included. As if to answer her question, a rainstorm of lightening sprinkled the ground with a dozen thin lines of voltage only a hundred meters from the mouth of their cave. The fingers of bright light burned spots into Rodney's vision and he suddenly felt like he was trapped inside one of those Plasma Balls that they sold at cheesy "science" stores.

An instant later, they all slapped their hands over their ears as the aural shockwave, set off by super-heated air from the strike, roared through the forest.

Teyla startled, John screamed and grabbed his head as if it were trying to roll away from his body. By the time they had recovered from their own shock, he was clawing at the ground and shouting incoherent nonsense.

"No! Treebark! Mayday mayday mayday! Rodney! Treebark!"

Teyla wrestled frantically, trying to swat his hands away from his head long enough to get the cold pack back on. Ronon and Rodney pressed on his hips and legs until his thrashing quieted and the shouts faded to anguished panting. At last John gagged with a dry heave and went still except for the ragged, fast breaths.

"John? Can you hear me? John!"

Teyla shook his shoulder, first tentatively, then more firmly.

"I can't wake him," she said, her eyes pleading, but Rodney had nothing. Nothing at all. No technology to help him. No brilliant plans. Not even a harebrained scheme. Those were Sheppard's department and they couldn't wake him. And his brain was scrambled even if they could.

"I'll risk it. I'll go anyway." Ronon's eyes were just as desperate and he kept bumping Rodney as he fidgeted against the cave wall.

"You can't. You'd be fried before you made it halfway to the gate." Another blast of sound, further away but no less frightening, emphasized his statement. "Sheppard wouldn't want you dead," he added, conceding defeat.

Ronon's howl of frustration died amidst the white noise of rain and the growling of thunder.


	2. Chapter 2

It was dark, stuffy, and wet. John was sleepy. Really, really sleepy. So why wasn't he asleep?

Because there was something he needed to do? Or say?

With growing confusion came growing pain. In his head. The whole left side, above his ear, felt hot and sore. Inside, someone was jabbing an icepick through his brain just behind his eyes. He gasped, and squeezed them even tighter against the constant flashing outside his lids. Something was growling and he tensed, the pounding in his head increasing with the pounding of his heart.

"John? Can you hear me, now? Are you awake?"

"M'wake," he heard himself answer, but he didn't feel like he was talking. The ground was starting to pitch and the invisible world was starting to whirl with nauseating speed. His thoughts tumbled like rocks in the pebble-smoother his brother had gotten him for his 7th birthday. Every now and then one would bounce to the top.

"Teyla's on the hive ship. Go, Ronon. Dig yourself out. Get Teyla."

"I'm here, John. I am safe. I…am glad you are awake." There was relief in the soft voice that John recognized through a haze of images of Teyla smiling.

"How's the kid? TJ, TJ, TJ. J is for John. I'd be very honored."

"Oh, brother. He's even more scrambled than before! He's getting worse, Teyla. What if his brain is swelling? He was unconscious for almost ten minutes. I'm sure that's not a good sign!"

John winced at the loudness of the voice, then whimpered. The unrelenting pain was a pressure he couldn't fight, couldn't stop, couldn't…bear. Even the tumbling thoughts felt mushy somehow. There was something he had to do?

"Rodney," he whispered. One soggy thought kept floating to the surface with Rodney's voice attached to it. "Rodney, tree bark. Village. Tree bark."

He was slipping away. The whimper became a groan. His head was splitting open. He began to pant against the pressure but it only increased.

"Rodney!" he said, and might have screamed it. He couldn't tell. The pain was too loud to hear even his own thoughts. "Rodney! Tree bark is…insulator!"

John clawed at his head, trying to tear out the agony. The whirling grew faster and faster until he was drowning in flashing lights and spinning memories. None surfaced anymore. Not even the important one.

* * *

><p>Ronon gritted his teeth and listened to Sheppard scream, almost ready to scream himself. He was trapped. Every nerve in his body crawled with the desire to flee, to run for help – or at least away from the cramped hole he was trapped in like an eggbird hiding from a thesta.<p>

"Rodney, tree bark. Village. Tree bark," Sheppard moaned.

"I wish he'd stop saying that," Rodney muttered. Ronon almost slapped the man for the callous words until a brighter flash revealed the man's horrified expression and defensive body language.

"The pain is very bad," Teyla choked out, her voice roughened with sympathy and impotence. "There's nothing else I can do for him. Ronon…"

She sought his eyes and he nodded.

"I'll try," he answered, his own voice gruff. "I have to try."

This time, Teyla didn't object, but the light reflected more brightly in her eyes.

"Rodney!" John screamed, and Ronon lurched off the ground, into a crouch.

"Rodney! Tree bark is…insulator!"

Sheppard's hoarse yell ended in a whimper. Ronon gathered himself for the run. He didn't know if speed could save him from lightning, but he knew how to be fast. Teyla wrestled with John for a moment longer, then called to him in soft pleas when his struggles ceased abruptly.

"Hold on, Sheppard," Ronon murmured softly. "I'll bring help."

A spattering of lightening stung his eyes and he covered his ears with the rest against the painful thunder. He blinked, waiting for the next bright flash to get his bearings and plan his path. He took a deep breath, lifted his foot.

"Wait!"

Rodney's sharp command halted his lunge out of the cave and he froze, mid-step. McKay was stiff as a board, staring at Sheppard.

"What?"

"Tree bark. That's it! Tree bark!"

Ronon flicked a look at Teyla, worried that Sheppard's delusion had somehow become contagious. When Rodney moved again, it was to aim a wide, happy grin at him.

"Don't you see? Sheppard figured out how to get through the storm without getting fried. He was trying to tell me when that tree got blasted. He's been trying to tell me for the past half hour."

Ronon was even more puzzled than before, but the sudden hope in Rodney's voice brought a flutter of it to his own chest. He dropped back down to one knee to look Rodney in the face.

"You know how to get through the storm?"

"Yes! Tree bark. It's an insulator."

"Rodney, I don't understand – ." Teyla began and Rodney cut her off with a chuff of impatience.

"The villagers use tree bark for their homes because it must be naturally resistant to electrical current. That's why the lightening avoids most of the trees around here, even though they're so tall. The bark surrounds the conductive cellulose like rubber around a power cord, probably an evolutionary defense mechanism against the constant storms."

"But lightning struck the tree that hit Sheppard."

Rodney just waved away what Ronon considered a reasonable contradiction. "Damage to the protective layer would leave a tree vulnerable. I'm sure it happens all the time. The trees that the villagers harvest for bark are probably severely weakened. Perhaps the one that fell had been harvested, or damaged by animals or disease, leaving it a conduit to ground. But the point is, if we can use some tree bark to keep our feet off ground and maybe over our heads as well, we've got a much better chance of making it through."

He was looking at them with that smug McKay expression, the one that expected congratulations. But Ronon just stared, puzzling out the practical implications – the only kind he cared about.

"You want us to make tree bark shoes?" he said at last. Rodney slumped but he dropped the superior routine.

"Yes. Could you go out just far enough to find six chunks of bark that would fit under our feet and some bigger panels that we could hold over our heads?"

"I'm on it."

Ronon leaped into the rain-drenched forest before Rodney said anything more. He was simply happy to be moving. Happy to be doing anything that moved him towards a solution that didn't involve sitting in a tiny cave. The rain soaked his still damp shirt and hair instantly, but he just tied one long lock around the others to keep the stream of water off his face. The ground crunched with centuries of shedded bark and, this time, Ronon stepped carefully, avoiding bare rock and choosing the deepest piles of debris to walk upon.

Lightning flickered constantly. A particularly bright flash almost blinded him, then left an annoying afterglow against his vision. He only had to go about ten meters before an ancient trunk rose out of the flashing gloom before him. Ronon circled the tree, looking for the best place to pry off the precious bark. The solid giant was old, older than Ronon could probably imagine, and he soon found a weak spot in the surface – a place that looked like a wound only partly healed over.

Ronon drew his sword from the scabbard at his back and jammed the tip deep into the fibrous covering. With a ferocious twist, a long strip peeled away and fell at his feet. Ronon put a hand on the green, freshly exposed wood.

"Thank you," he murmured to the tree before he continued to harvest the material that just might save his friend's life.

* * *

><p>Rodney watched Ronon disappear into the night, then turned to Teyla.<p>

"Should we send Ronon to the stargate alone, or should we try to all go and take Sheppard with us?" he asked. Questions about conductivity and the voltage a bolt of lightning required to reach the ground from the sky he could answer. How to deal with a man's broken head, not so much. Teyla looked pensive, the flashes that revealed her face casting her in a ghostly pale glow.

"John needs medical attention sooner rather than later. I believe it is worth the risk to move him if it means he reaches Atlantis that much sooner."

"There's risk in moving him?" Rodney scooted closer to see her face, uncertain that he really wanted to know how much trouble she thought Sheppard was in. She was looking down, rummaging in John's vest and her own.

"Movement causes him a lot of pain. Carrying him will be very hard on him."

"Is he even conscious?"

John wasn't moving that Rodney could see, but Teyla was practically cradling him in her lap, so she would know better.

"He is…not unconscious, but he seems completely unaware of his surroundings. He's been mumbling about someone named Norman Bates for the past several minutes."

Rodney chortled, despite himself. Teyla's glare was severe.

"Norman Bates is a killer from an old classic horror movie. I had a few Psycho moments when we were out in that storm myself," he explained.

Teyla just chuffed, unimpressed, so he turned to the next issue. "Any ideas how we can make tree bark shoes? We will still have to be very careful not to step in any puddles over our ankles, but it's something. It may help."

Teyla just handed over a handful of zip ties that she had pulled from the vests.

"Oh. Good idea," Rodney managed, starting to dig in his vest for his own ties. He would never admit it out loud, but Teyla and Ronon were very good at making things. Rodney had never even liked rocket models as a kid. He'd wanted to do the trajectory math instead… Once he had a large handful of the things, he looked blankly at the thin strips of plastic and wondered what to do next.

"Will these work?"

Rodney jumped as Ronon, large and sopping wet, lunged suddenly through the cave opening. He dropped a huge pile of bark strips, ranging from chips the size of Rodney's foot to one panel that looked like a shield. Rodney looked up into the tall man's fiercely concerned face.

"Those will do great," he said.

The next fifteen minutes were a blur of busy industry. Teyla passed Sheppard-watching duty to Rodney who managed to sit still enough to suit her only after three snippy comments and one yelp from John. His cheeks burning with mortification, he patted John's shoulder awkwardly when the man's head thrashed weakly in his lap.

"We got your message, John," he whispered when Teyla and Ronon were too busy gouging holes and threading chained zip ties through the bark to notice. "We'll get you out of here. I promise. Jennifer will have you drifting on the good stuff soon."

He only received a gasp of pain in return.

When they were finally ready, Rodney, Ronon, and Teyla all had thick chunks of bark zip-tied to the soles of their feet, shoulders, and perched on their heads like weird forest fairy caps. Rodney really hoped Zelenka wasn't in the gateroom when they made it home.

"Help me lift him, Rodney," Teyla was saying. "We need to try to keep him as still as possible."

"Lift him into what?"

"I'm carrying him," Ronon clarified at Rodney's bewildered look.

Rodney held John's head still while he wriggled into a crouch. At Teyla's signal, Rodney heaved on John's shoulders, struggling to keep the man's head propped against his chest as he lurched to a stand. Teyla lifted his legs. Together, they gently laid John in Ronon's arms and propped his head against Ronon's shoulders like a child.

It could have been touching, or heartwarming, or even horrendously embarrassing, but all Rodney felt was urgency bordering on panic. John shouldn't be that willing to let someone carry him. No one's face should be that twisted by pain.

"Let's go," Rodney said and led the way out of the cave and into the stormy night. Yeah, that sounded poetic enough, he thought with disgust. "Stupid nature."

Teyla kept one eye on Rodney who was guiding them around puddles and over the thickest patches of tree bark crumbs. The other she kept on Ronon. She recognized the incredible effort it took to carry a man as solid as John Sheppard. Even a fireman's carry was exhausting, but the burden of cradling John in his arms required much more raw strength. After only a few minutes of stomping over uneven forest floor in clumsy tree bark shoes, Ronon's jaw was twisted into a snarl of effort no less strained than the snarl of pain on John's face.

"Ronon," she began when he stumbled ever-so-slightly against a hidden tree root.

"I can do it," he wheezed, interrupting her, so she just continued watching.

John had his eyes squeezed shut, his fists clenched tightly around the edge of Ronon's shirt. His hair and face were beaded with rain, but he spared no effort to wipe away the droplets.

Ten minutes into the grueling trek to the stargate, her own legs were leaden with the extra effort each step took in balance and weight. Her thighs were beginning to quiver and she watched Ronon with growing awe. The tall Satedan's arms were quivering and the tendons in his neck stood out in strings of effort, but he kept John steady and would not allow his shaking arms to lower.

"How far?" she called, at last, stepping faster to catch up to Rodney who was also slumped with weariness and waddling with ever exaggerated effort in his own bark boots.

"Not far," Rodney gasped and threw an arm towards a rise in the forest floor ahead of them. Teyla nodded, then frowned when the air around them seemed to shimmer. Teyla felt the hair on her arms lift and she could swear the ground had begun to glow. She froze, puzzled. Rodney did the same which relieved her – she was not the only one to see the strange effect. A moment later, Rodney began waving his arms and yelling.

"Spread out! Stand on one foot! Get close to a tree and find as much bark as you can to stand on!"

Teyla flung herself into the crook of a nearby ancient giant and watched Ronon put his back to the same bole beside her. Rodney leaped on top of a pile of crumbling bark that had sloughed off a fallen trunk and crouched down, rocking to stand on his toes. He covered his hands with his head and Teyla followed suit.

A dozen or more thin bolts of lightning surrounded them like bright white bars in an electrified cage. She pressed her hands into her ears even harder when the very air began to scream at them. Her arms tingled and heat washed over her along with blinding light and deafening sound. Sparks danced even through her closed eyes.

"John!" she screamed back at the storm, pouring her frustration and fear into her voice. Her heart sounded loud, but she couldn't hear anything beyond her own panic. She couldn't see anything but blue-white flares against her eyelids. She felt a touch on her arm and startled. She couldn't see.

"Let's go. Teyla, come on. We're almost there. I can see the DHD. Are you OK?"

Rodney's insistent tone finally brought her back to the forest. She gasped, reached for Rodney's arm to steady herself and opened her eyes. She had to blink to see around the spots still blurring her vision. Rodney accepted her touch, held on to her elbow in return, but his attention was now on Ronon.

"Ronon, are you OK? Can you make it a few more feet?"

Concern finally steadied her. She pushed away from the tree to add her strength to Ronon who stood braced against the trunk, his arms shaking in tremors of exhaustion. He held John tightly to his chest as if he could shield the wounded man with strength alone.

"I…can make it," he answered, breathing heavily. "Help me."

Teyla and Ronon immediately grabbed for Ronon's elbows, and together they supported him over the last rocky rise that overlooked the space where the stargate waited for them.

Rodney lumbered ahead on his awkward boots and was slamming his hands into the DHD's symbols before Ronon and Teyla reached the clearing. Teyla had never been so grateful to see the reaching splash of the stargate's initializing wave. She had never been so wet and tired and scared of a storm in her life. Storms had always been exciting and enjoyable to her, even as a child.

Rodney re-joined them and they were halfway to the stargate when she felt again the charge of static against her skin and saw again the weird blue glow skittering along the ground. Her heart clenched in fear and she threw a terrified look at Rodney.

"Run!" he yelled, and they flung themselves towards the shimmering blue puddle.


	3. Chapter 3

Jennifer Keller was just leaving Woolsey's office when the alarms rang and the gate room technicians leaped to cheerful alert. Curious, she strolled to the rail to wait for whoever was returning. Even after two years on Atlantis, she was still somewhat amazed by the technology that had taken her an entire galaxy from Earth and enjoyed watching the Stargate perform its amazing feat.

"It's Dr. McKay's IDC," a technician called. "I'm lowering the shield."

Jennifer grinned. Even better! She could welcome Rodney back and walk with him to his post-mission checkup in the infirmary. She was walking towards the steps that would take her to the arrival platform when the stargate buzzed with a strange zap of energy and the normally smooth event horizon flashed and fuzzed out like a snowy TV signal.

She jerked a glance back at the technicians who were now all looking very tense. Chuck's fingers flew over the piano-like controls of the Ancient panel. When Woolsey emerged from his office with an air of concern, Chuck called out, "Mr. Woolsey, there's a massive power surge with the incoming travelers. I'm compensating to try to keep the wormhole from jumping!"

Jennifer didn't understand the technobabble, but she got that something was wrong. And that Rodney was in the middle of it. She turned and ran down the stairs.

The familiar splut of an arrival met her only halfway down, but instead of strolling through the gate one by one, four figures were flung out like they'd been tossed by a giant slingshot. There was a soggy thud as the jumble of bodies slammed into the gateroom floor and skidded several feet.

Jennifer exclaimed in alarm, almost tripped on the stairs in her haste to reach the bottom. She got to Rodney first. He had been flung the farthest into the room and lay panting on his stomach, gasping as if he'd just run a marathon. For all she knew he had! She realized. She dug her fingers into his neck, but he swatted her hand away.

"Sheppard," he wheezed. "Sheppard needs help."

She hesitated, but Rodney just waved her away, so she stood, looking for Colonel Sheppard amid the remaining pile. The still-sparking wormhole finally collapsed. Two gate security guards also rushed forward. One crouched and began speaking to Teyla who was sitting up and cradling her arm.

Jennifer stepped around Teyla and saw Ronon. He was lying on his side, curled around Sheppard whom he held tightly in his arms like a cat he'd just rescued from a tree. She took a hopping leap over the pair and almost slipped. The floor and the men themselves were sopping wet. Ronon had strange pieces of wood tied to his shoulders. She crouched to get a closer look at Ronon's face and saw that there was wood tied to his feet as well. What the hell was that about?

"Shppard," Ronon panted. "Jennifer, help Sheppard."

"Ok, I will, but you have to let go of him first," she replied, realizing she didn't sound too sympathetic, but she was feeling a little overwhelmed.

Sheppard had his arms over his head like he was defending himself from flying debris. It wasn't until Ronon groaned and heaved himself upright to roll Sheppard onto the floor that she saw the blood-crusted left side of Sheppard's face.

"Oh, boy," she whispered. She dug her fingers into the Colonel's neck, feeling her own pulse quicken when his felt fast and thready. Sheppard drew his knees up and clawed at his skull.

"I need a trauma team, a backboard and neckbrace," she bellowed to the room at large. Sheppard winced and tried to curl onto his side at the volume and she bit her lip, glared at Ronon. "Why did you move him?" she snapped. Head injuries terrified her. Ever since she'd….lost…Elizabeth.

She immediately regretted her tone, however, when Ronon scowled deeply with a flicker of anger in his eyes.

"We weren't in a safe place," he answered, his voice no more than a growl. "He was getting worse."

"How long ago was he injured," she asked next, keeping her voice calm this time. It was Teyla who answered.

"A little more than an hour ago."

"Did he lose consciousness at any point over that hour?"

"Yes. That tree knocked him unconscious immediately. He was out for almost five minutes. He also passed out about half an hour ago and we couldn't wake him for almost ten minutes. The lightning and thunder seemed to really bother him." This answer was from Rodney and Jennifer looked up from her first aid checklist to see the whole, sopping team, plus Woolsey and the two SOs, clustered around her.

"Lightning and thunder?"

"He was disoriented from the moment of the blow." Teyla again. "And grew more so over the course of the hour. He also seemed to be in more and more pain, the longer we waited. He hasn't been truly aware of his surroundings for the past half hour."

"I see. He was getting worse," she repeated, throwing Ronon a slight nod of apology. She was surprised by the relief her approval brought to his eyes. It must have been a hell of a storm.

Good news came in equal measure with the bad. She was very concerned about the team's description of the Colonel's disorientation, but a quick look revealed no asymmetrical dilation of the pupils. His blood pressure and heart rate was up, and he was obviously very sensitive to light and sound - he flinched at any noise around him and kept his face buried in his hands – but at least he was conscious. She felt much better when she spotted the trauma team racing out of the hallway towards the arrival platform. She grabbed for her scanner and stethoscope the second they shoved their way beside her.

"Get the neck brace on and get him on the backboard. Alert the infirmary that I want the scanner warmed up and ready for us immediately. Start an IV…"

The words flowed. She fell into the rhythm of her training and felt the fear recede into the part of her mind that wouldn't interfere with 'The Dr. Jennifer Keller's work.

The colonel resisted lying flat on the backboard, preferring instead to curl on his side and cover his head. When they finally wrestled him flat, he lay so tense and tight, she felt a flood of sympathy. She hated seeing a patient in pain. She hated not being able to do anything about it and pain-killers were out of the question until she knew the severity of the injury.

"Colonel," she whispered as she waited for the trauma team to finish their work and they could move him, "it's Jennifer. Dr. Keller. We're taking you to the infirmary. I'll try to help you with the pain as soon as I can, but you need to hang in there for a little longer."

"Okay, okay," he gasped and Jennifer was encouraged by his seeming comprehension. She smiled and looked up to share it with the Colonel's team who hovered just beyond her own. They all looked cold, wet and exhausted, but they returned her smile with hopeful looks. Rodney still had a chunk of wood tied to his head.

Sheppard muttered something, then repeated it more loudly. Jennifer bent to listen closely.

"What happened?" he said. His expression, even with tightly closed eyes, was confused and worried.

"Your friends brought you home, John," she answered. "Everyone is safe and you're home. That's what happened."

The Colonel finally relaxed a little, began to breathe deeply as if trying to manage the pain rather than simply endure it.

"That's…the answer…I wanted," he said softly.

* * *

><p>"So we went through all of that and he's only got a concussion?"<p>

"Hush, Rodney," Jennifer chided softly and Teyla suppressed a smirk when Rodney obediently snapped his mouth shut.

The three of them were standing in a secluded corner of the infirmary near John's bed where he lay now dressed in maroon infirmary scrubs and curled around an array of pillows and blankets. Teyla had waited until Jennifer had completed the scans of John's head and decided upon his treatment until she returned to her own quarters to change and clean up. Well, in truth, it was Jennifer who had insisted she change and clean up. The well-meaning doctor had shooed all of them out with the promise of no information or updates about John's condition until they'd rested.

Ronon hadn't returned at all, yet, and Teyla was grateful that the powerful man had allowed himself time to recover from the grueling rescue.

"There's no such thing as only a concussion, Rodney, and Colonel Sheppard has a _severe_ concussion. You got him home in time for us to manage the brain swelling without surgery, but yes – the good news is that there is no hematoma or contusion of the brain. He will probably be very uncomfortable for several days and will need to rest for several more."

"Uncomfortable, how?" Teyla asked, eager to understand so that she could prepare comfort. "Will the head pain we observed him experiencing continue?"

"Most likely, though pain-killers will help. I also expect he'll feel dizzy, nauseous. He continues to demonstrate extreme sensitivity to light and sound."

"Which is why it looks and feels like a mortuary in here," Rodney groused. The lights were indeed dimmed to almost-dark and Jennifer had put John in a bed far from any other patients or activity. But Teyla thought the room felt more like a place of calm healing and hope than death and despair.

"Go and check on him already," Jennifer snapped, to Teyla's surprise. And apparently Rodney's surprise as well.

"Fine. I will."

"Fine. But be _quiet_. Remember that he feels like he's got a super-sized migraine and an inner ear infection all at the same time."

"Oh, wow. I had an inner ear infection once as a kid after some Neanderthal's down my street decided to throw me in the creek to teach me how to swim. It was more a runoff ditch than a creek and the water was filthy. It took two rounds of antibiotics to –."

"Rodney. Go." Jennifer interrupted with a shove.

Teyla watched Rodney lumber over to John's bed and then go respectful and quiet.

"He's just worried," Jennifer said, her voice low and her expression endearing as she watched Rodney. Teyla bit her lip to hide the amused smirk that threatened her lips. "He kept asking me if the Colonel suffered any brain damage." At Teyla's eyebrows up look of concern, Jennifer hastily waved away the worry. "John will have to be very careful about future head injuries – new evidence all the time indicates the consequences of multiple concussion are cumulative – but there is no current indication of any permanent effects."

"I am glad to hear that. It was very…disconcerting when he was so disoriented. He kept asking what happened. He couldn't remember where he was." She trailed off with a shiver of dread.

"That is not unexpected with this severe a concussion, but I also suspect the light and thunder had a lot to do with his disorientation." She looked at John and Rodney again. "Even The Lt. Colonel John Sheppard can be distracted by that much pain."

"Thank you for your care, Jennifer," Teyla whispered. She knew the words were not necessary, but she spoke them anyway.

"You're welcome, but I'll need your help to keep an eye on him over the next two weeks. Make him rest. _Really_ rest. Once the pain recedes, he'll feel normal, but he will need time to completely heal. Let me know immediately if you notice any symptoms of depression, moodiness, irritability, lack of concentration."

Teyla nodded solemnly. She was listening, but she also needed to see John for herself, to prove to herself that he was on the path to recovery. Jennifer must have figured that out as well because she made a pretense of patting her pockets for her scanner and walked over to the bed to stand beside Rodney.

Teyla followed. Rodney was talking very fast in a hissing whisper.

"Chuck said that the surge caused by lightening striking the stargate was almost enough to cause the wormhole to jump to a new gate and who knows how that would have worked out. There are way too many space gates in the Pegaus galaxy for my comfort, which is probably why the Ancients built in some extra power buffering controls. The gate techs were able to compensate until we arrived. I've been talking to Woolsey about building some of that code into the Milky Way network which would –."

Jennifer finished a quick scan of John's vitals, then grabbed Rodney's arm and began to pull him away from the bed with a grin at Teyla.

"- give them the same control. Are we going somewhere? Oh, OK. Get better Sheppard. We still have to go over the data Major Teldy collected and I found another reference to another planet with an Ancient power source – ouch!"

Jennifer finally succeeded in dragging Rodney away leaving Teyla alone with John. She spent a moment studying him before she spoke. He was on his side, his arms wrapped around a pillow that he clutched tightly to his chest. Delicate wires were attached to his brow and temples and more trailed through the v-neck collar of his scrubs. A stack of machines blinked softly beside the bed, each tracing John's every heart-beat and even, perhaps, every thought.

His face was pale and sweaty and he swallowed constantly around deep breaths. She had sat with children suffering from flu and stomachaches often enough to recognize the discomfort of one enduring extreme nausea. The blood had been cleaned off of his face and a crisp white strip of gauze was wrapped around the black fluff of his hair, but a dark purple bruise darkened his left temple down to his tense, tightly-clenched jaw.

"Is he gone?" came a very soft whisper and Teyla ceased her scrutiny to see John cracking his eyes open ever so slightly.

"Yes," she whispered back in deference to his sensitive hearing, unable to keep the grin off her lips. "He was very worried and wished to check on you for himself, but I think Jennifer will keep him away if you want her to." John just breathed in what Teyla assumed was relief. He was lying too still to even nod. She debated whether to say anything more, it seemed such an effort for him to speak.

"What happened…" he began and Teyla stiffened, feeling a thrill of worry tickle her spine until he finished, "to you?"

Confused for a moment, she finally realized that he was shooting small peeks at the bandage she had wrapped around her elbow.

"I bruised my elbow when we were thrown through the stargate. It is not serious. I just forgot to remove the wrap after holding some ice on it."

"Ronon…okay?" This time, John didn't bother to open his eyes to speak.

"He is fine, just exhausted. I believe he said something about increasing your exercise and decreasing your caloric intake before he had to carry you a mile and a half over rough terrain again."

A ghost of a smile touched John's lips so Teyla asked the question that was truly burning in her heart, "John, how do you feel? Do you need anything?"

There was a long pause and Teyla had almost decided John had fallen asleep.

"Talk to me?" he said at last.

"You…want me to talk to you?"

"Yes. Tell story."

Teyla was growing amused. Perhaps he was more confused than she thought, but his brow knitted in concentration.

"Can't read. Can't listen to music. Head hurts. Talk to me…"

A rush of sympathy flooded her chest and she patted his shoulder before jogging over to grab a chair. He was watching her when she settled into the hard seat and leaned back.

"What story do you wish to hear?" she asked.

There was another long pause. John managed to look sheepish when he finally answered.

"Tell me how I hit my head and how we got off the planet."

Teyla frowned. "You still don't remember?"

"Remember some, but all fuzzy. Mostly remember that my head hurt."

Her smile returned. Yes, Jennifer was right. Even John Sheppard could be distracted by pain. He was not "scrambled", in Rodney's words. He was just a man who'd reached the limits of his endurance. It was frightening only in how unusual that was, but when it did happen, his team was there for him. As she was there for him, now.

"Do you remember the village?"

"A little."

"Then I had better start from the beginning…"

The End!

* * *

><p>This was written for kodiakbear for the Sheppard HC Summer Fic Exchange. You can also find the story on my LJ!

If you like my stories, please consider voting for me at the 2011 GateFic Awards! gatefic (dot) com/awards/2011-nominees At least, go read some amazing great stories and vote for the ones you like best!


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